


Disappearing Lies

by DoomedKelpie



Series: Trick or Treat (And What Follows) [13]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders Angst, Deceit | Janus Sanders Angst, Dermatillomania, Emetophobia, Excoriation Disorder, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, Janus and Remus are friends, Mental Breakdown, Mental Illness, Overdose, Panic Attacks, Self Harm, Self-Esteem Issues, Skin picking, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Sympathetic Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Sympathetic Deceit | Janus Sanders, emetophobia triggers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:02:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29565123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoomedKelpie/pseuds/DoomedKelpie
Summary: When Virgil points out that Janus has barely been lying lately, it acts as the spark for something much worse than anything they had expected.
Series: Trick or Treat (And What Follows) [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2002450
Comments: 109
Kudos: 96





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, guys, sorry for the wait. I’ve had a lot of exams recently, and I was in the hospital getting a thyroid biopsy (only actually there for a few hours but the drugs they gave me made my head weird for a day or two), so I hadn’t really felt up to editing this part so I could start posting it.
> 
> This is going to be the last part of the fic (unless I get more ideas for it later, which may or may not happen).
> 
> IMPORTANT NOTE: This part of the fic is going to be the most serious and potentially upsetting of the parts, and there are a lot more trigger warnings associated with it, so please read the tags.

One day, Virgil was deep in thought, which wasn’t exactly rare for him, but he felt like this particular thinking session could be important.

He’d noticed something about Janus recently. Not the skin picking, or the attempts to get Remus accepted, or even the way that the deceitful side’s anxiety only seemed to be increasing (which was starting to become a pretty significant problem, but Janus still didn’t want to go back to Emile). 

No, though Virgil had noticed those things, that wasn’t quite what he was thinking about. The thing he was thinking about was something that could, potentially, have ramifications for not just Deceit, but also Thomas.

“Hey, Jan?”

Janus was talking to Logan and Roman in the living room, where Virgil had been sitting silently all afternoon. The deceitful side had been rather quiet and subdued himself, but he was still responding to what the other two were saying, at least. It had been during this discussion that Virgil had happened upon his realization.

“Hm? What is it, Virgil?”

Virgil fiddled with his sleeves and bit his lip. 

“Have you… noticed anything… different… about yourself lately?”

At this, Janus stared at him, looking like a deer caught in headlights. Virgil could sense the sudden spike in the other side’s anxiety just as clearly as he could see him shifting uncomfortably on the couch.

“I’m not sure what you’re referring to, Virgil, so you’ll have to be more specific,” he answered, shuffling uncomfortably. “Why?”

Virgil could see that Roman and Logan were also both paying attention. Which made sense since he’d essentially interrupted their conversation, but still.

“It’s just…,” Virgil tried. “Jan, what color is the sky?”

Janus tilted his head, now looking confused.

“Um, blue?” he replied. “Virgil, I’m afraid I really don’t quite understand what you’re getting at, and I don’t believe I’ve said any lies for you to be confused about- oh.”

Virgil could see the moment that Janus came to the same realization he had. 

The other man started to bring a gloved hand up to his mouth in surprise, but the action was quickly aborted as he let it fall back to his lap. 

“Hey, don’t leave  _ us _ in the dark!”

Janus was tense and hands tightly clenched, having frozen in place as he stared back at Virgil. His expression was shockingly unguarded, and that allowed Virgil to see the disbelief and apprehension clouding the side’s mismatched eyes.

“Jan, when was the last time you lied  _ unintentionally _ ?”

He saw Janus’s expression shift again as the side concentrated- he had to  _ concentrate _ \- to remember when the last time he compulsively lied was.

“I don’t… I don’t remember,” he answered, his voice rough. 

“Wait, what?” Roman asked quizzically. “But, like, don’t you end up in ‘Liar Mode’ if you tell the truth too much? Like, you usually can’t even get through an entire conversation without lying.”

Janus didn’t respond.

“Now that you’ve mentioned it, Virgil, it does seem like Janus’s lying has decreased significantly recently,” Logan noted. “I assumed it was because he was becoming more comfortable around us, but is that not the case?”

At this, Janus shook his head, performing the motion much longer than necessary.

“No, no, my level of comfort has nothing to do with it. Virgil and I had been comfortable with each other for some time before he left the dark sides, and I still automatically lied to him all the time.”

“Yeah, you did,” Virgil agreed, picking at a loose thread on his sleeve. “That’s why we had to come up with the color code in the first place. Janus couldn’t control it, even around Remus and I.”

“Hm,” Logan hummed, going quiet for a moment before speaking again. “Maybe it has to do with recent events, then?”

“What do you mean, Specs?”

“Well, Janus started lying less  _ after _ we all decided to include him and after Thomas more fully accepted him. Essentially, once he became ‘one of us’,” Logan theorized. “It could be similar to what happened with Virgil. After Virgil was accepted, he, shall we say, ‘settled down’. Thomas started to experience less anxiety, and Virgil himself started to experience less as well. The trait is still present but the involuntary expressions of it are less frequent.”

“Wait, so  _ Deceit _ doesn’t have to lie as much because we let him join in on movie night and stuff?” Roman questioned. 

Janus looked upset, and Virgil knew that, whatever was going through the other side’s head, it wasn’t likely to be good. But before he could say anything to try to determine if Janus was okay, Logan started talking again.

“I believe it has more to do with Thomas and ourselves accepting his input, but that’s more or less the gist of it,” Logan sighed. “You see, I have a theory that, when Thomas is resistant to a side’s input, we start to unconsciously attempt to make him listen through outbursts of our traits. I’ve noticed this the most with Virgil, Janus, and Remus because they have been the sides least listened to, but I believe I’ve observed it in us and Patton as well.”

“Oop, did someone call for their happy-pappy Patton?”

Patton had just entered the commons living room, utterly unaware that he had walked into a serious conversation. As he saw the shock on Janus’s expression, as well as the concern on Virgil’s, the confusion on Roman’s, and the intrigue on Logan’s, however he quickly realized that, whatever was going on, it probably wasn’t the right time for peppy entrances and dad jokes. 

As such, his expression fell and morphed into one of concern.

“Oh no, are you guys okay?” he questioned worriedly. “Did something happen?”

“Well, nothing  _ happened _ , per se…”

“Janus… I realized that he hasn’t really been lying lately, and, well…,” Virgil trailed off.

“Oh!” Patton exclaimed. “You mean how Janus hasn’t been speaking backwards and lying all the time now.”

“Well, yeah…”

“Wait, you already knew about this, Padre?”

Patton played with the ends of his cat hoodie.

“Well, yeah.”

It looked like Janus was going to say something, but then Patton continued.

“But why do you all look upset about it?”

And then he dropped a verbal bomb that made Virgil question how exactly Thomas’s main core of emotions could sometimes be so insensitive:

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

The room fell silent, an imagined chill freezing them all in place. Virgil saw Janus’s shoulders tense up even more as the shock on his face started to mix with heartbreak. The moral side quickly noticed the way Janus’s face changed and knew that he had messed up.

“Wait, wait, kiddo, that’s not- I didn’t mean-”

Janus stood, not letting Patton finish his sentence as he spoke:

“I think… I think I should go be alone for a while…”

And then Janus sank out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaaah, Patton really didn’t mean to hurt Janus. But, well.


	2. Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, here’s the next chapter. Once again, remember to read the tags.

Deceit hadn’t left his room in a while, even though the others kept knocking on his door, trying to get him to come out. Virgil came after him and started the knocking only a minute after Deceit locked himself inside, and someone had been coming by at least twice a day since. 

Right when it first happened, Deceit had been upset, and overwhelmed, and that’s what he told Virgil. He told him that he just needed some time alone, and at the time, he believed it. He thought he was telling the truth, and that only made things worse because he really  _ didn’t _ feel the urge to compulsively lie like he used to. Of course, as the days passed by and Deceit still didn’t leave his room, the excuse of needing time alone shifted into a lie, but it was a purposeful one. He  _ chose _ to tell the lie because he couldn’t convince himself to leave or let anyone in, not because his words got all twisted up. 

He wasn’t even entirely sure  _ why _ exactly he felt like he couldn’t leave his room. He knew that he  _ could _ , and he knew that, chances were, nothing bad would happen if he did. But every time he even thought about walking over to the door, of pulling it open, even just for a second, he found himself freezing up. His heart started pounding, and his thoughts started swirling, and then he would just sit there, unable to do anything at all (And this wasn’t really  _ new _ to him, but he hadn’t gotten like this in a while, and he never  _ had _ figured out why he got like this sometimes in the first place). It was better to not try to convince himself to leave because, then, he could at least read a book or something instead of wasting time over-reacting. 

Granted, he still ended up wasting time whenever one of the others tried to talk to him through the door. Every time, they would ask him to come out, and most of the time, he almost would before the anxiety would crash over him again. 

“Come on, K. K. SLieder, why don’t you join us for movie night?”

_ Roman hated him. He didn’t really want him there. He was the villain, and Roman was the hero, so of course he would hate him. He just didn’t want to pity the bad guy. _

“ Janus , I understand that you are distressed, but we cannot help you if you hide yourself away.”

_ Logan hated him too. He had the right to hate him. They all did. He just needed Deceit to stop throwing a tantrum so Thomas wouldn’t be affected. _

“Deeeeeeeeee, why won’t you come out? I have so many things to show you!”

_ Remus was better off without him. Deceit is the one who stopped him from making himself known to Thomas for so long. Maybe if he hadn’t done that, Remus could have been accepted already. Maybe Thomas wouldn’t have been so afraid of him. _

“ Jan , please… I… I’m afraid for you…”

_ No, Virgil wasn’t afraid  _ **_for_ ** _ him, he was afraid  _ **_of_ ** _ him. And he should be. Deceit had been terrible to him for so long. Hell, he even lied to Anxiety when they first met. He had  _ **_always_ ** _ lied to him. He lied, he manipulated, he controlled. No wonder Virgil grew to hate him. _

“Kiddo, I made dinner. Do you want to eat with us?”

_ Patton. Patton, Patton, Patton. Patton hated lying, hated him. He was glad that Deceit stopped lying. But he was still a  _ **_liar_ ** **,** _ still  _ **_lied_ ** _. _

“I’m really sorry,  Janus . I didn’t mean to upset you… I thought… I…”

_ Maybe Patton only accepted him because he hoped Deceit would stop lying, stop being  _ **_Deceit_ ** _. Maybe, once he realized that  _ _ Janus _ _ was still Deceit, would  _ **_always_ ** _ be Deceit, he would want him gone again. _

“I… If you don’t feel up for coming down, I can bring you something, okay? I… I know you have a kitchen, but…”

Whether he responded or not, they would all eventually leave him alone to wallow in his room. 

Now alone all the time, Deceit saw little point in trying to hold back his impulse to pick at his skin. He no longer stopped himself from rolling up his sleeves, from pulling off his gloves. He let his eyes roam over the blemished expanses of skin, let his nails dig into the imperfect flesh, let crimson blood well up from wounds that shouldn’t have even been there. 

What if he was losing his abilities as Deceit? What if he wasn’t important anymore, and he was going to start fading away? What if Thomas didn’t  _ need _ him, didn’t  _ want _ him?  _ No, Thomas already didn’t want him. No matter what he said, there was no way Thomas actually wanted him around _ . Would everyone be happier if he  _ did _ fade away? If he was gone? Would they be better off without the lying, deceptive snake around? 

Sometimes, instead of anxiety, he felt anger. 

_ How could they drive him away? He was a part of Thomas, and Thomas needed him, needed his functions. If he had ducked out like Virgil, Thomas would have turned into a fucking  _ **_mess_ ** _. They  _ **_needed_ ** _ him, even if they didn’t want him, and they had no right to villainize him for all these years. Looking back, it had been such a  _ **_stupid_ ** _ argument. They  _ **_abandoned_ ** _ him over a damn.  _ **_Cookie_ ** _. He had just been trying to do his job. He had just been trying to protect Remus, protect Virgil, protect Thomas, protect  _ **_himself_ ** _. Why couldn’t Patton have seen that he was just trying to  _ **_help_ ** _? Why hadn’t  _ **_any_ ** _ of them seen that? Why hadn’t anyone gone to find him after he ran off? Had they all really wanted him gone? Didn’t they feel bad at all, didn’t they  _ **_miss_ ** _ him? How could they drive him away? How could they drive Remus away? Or Virgil? And why had Virgil been so desperate to fling himself into the Light Sides’ arms when he  _ **_knew_ ** _ what they did? Was Deceit really so awful that he would rather run back to the people who abandoned him than stay with the people who cared for him when he was cast away? How  _ **_dare_ ** _ he abandon him like that… _

Other times, he felt regret.

_ Why did he become the villain? Why did he have to become the very thing they thought he was? Was he destined to turn into the villain all along, or could he have turned out differently if he had done something else?  _ **_Could_ ** _ he have acted differently, been different, been  _ **_good_ ** _? Should he have tried to return after Roman drove him away? Would they have forgiven him, welcomed him back? Would they have apologized? Should  _ **_he_ ** _ have apologized? Should he have stopped doing his job? Would everyone have been happy if he had just sucked it up and went along with what everyone else wanted? Would Remus and Virgil have been driven away if he had still been there? Could he have spared them the pain of abandonment? _

And intermingled with all the anxiety and anger and regrets, there was guilt and pain, and Deceit didn’t even know which feelings were justified and which weren’t. How much was his fault, and how much was theirs? What was real, and what was imagined? What was the truth, and what were the lies?

He wasn’t even entirely sure why such a little thing had set him off like this. All it took was Patton saying one little thing for everything to come crashing down again. It only took a handful of words to plunge Deceit into a perfect storm of emotions that made him feel like he was drowning- and he didn’t know what could even pull him back out of the water. 

Deceit thought he had gotten over this already. Hadn’t they all had a hundred heart-to-hearts? Hadn’t they already talked through all of this? Hadn’t they already forgiven him, and hadn’t he already forgiven  _ them? _ Everything should be  _ resolved _ .

_ So why was he still so  _ **_afraid_ ** _ of them? _


	3. Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me a while to post the next chapter.

Virgil was pacing.

It had been two weeks since Janus had locked himself away in his room, and nothing they had tried would get him to open up the door. Which, technically, wasn’t the longest amount of time Janus had spent locked up in his room, but this time was definitely worse than his usual hiding away. Virgil could feel Janus’s anxiety coming from the room in waves. It was starting to feel like his own room, and  _ that _ was really concerning. He was  _ Anxiety _ , so being anxious was normal for him, and he was getting better at coping with it. And his room was  _ supposed _ to have a dark, fear-inducing aura around it. But Janus’s room wasn’t supposed to be like that.  _ Janus _ wasn’t supposed to be like that. Out of all the times over the years that Virgil had detected Janus’s anxiety, recent events included, it had never been  _ this _ bad before. 

Further complicating the issue, Patton had also been upset the entire time. Whether it was because he felt bad about what he said or Janus’s emotions were starting to influence him (though he had a feeling it was both), Patton had been jittery as well. And though Patton mostly dealt with his nerves through excessive baking and cleaning, Virgil had already witnessed him bursting into tears at least once a day since Janus hid away. 

Well, really, they were all on edge. Roman was agitated, and he kept going into the imagination to let off steam. Logan- despite trying not to appear distressed- had been trying to come up with ways to get Janus to come out and ways to help him almost non-stop, and Virgil was pretty sure the logical side had barely been sleeping during all this. And Remus, once they explained the situation to him, had been ping-ponging between excessive destructive energy and sitting motionless in the corner. One minute, they had to keep Remus from trying to smash Janus’s door down (though Virgil was starting to think that might end up being the only solution to this), and the next, they couldn’t even get him to eat. At this point, they were just as concerned about Remus as they were about Janus, so they had been trying to keep an eye on him. 

Currently, the five of them who hadn’t isolated themselves were all gathered in the living room. As Virgil paced, Logan and Roman sat on the couch, with Logan slumping over with exhaustion and Roman tying knots in some rope that Logan had handed him. Remus was in the quiet, unmoving state he had been getting in, sitting in a corner in a way that was completely unlike him. Patton was hovering around everyone, completing only half-actions before flitting over to do something else.

“Virgil, perhaps you should try to sit down for a bit,” Logan suggested tiredly, knowing Virgil wouldn’t. 

Virgil growled. 

“I shouldn’t have brought it up in the first place,” he hissed, mostly to himself. “If I just hadn’t mentioned it, this wouldn’t have happened!”

“Kiddo…”

Patton tried to reach for him, but Virgil stepped away before he could. 

“I just… this is  _ bad _ guys. I… He’s always had issues before, but not like  _ this _ . I can  _ feel _ his anxiety, and it’s a lot more than I’ve ever felt from him,” he continued. “What if something happens?! He won’t let us in, and he still has his room locked up so Thomas can’t even get in!”

Virgil flung his arms in the air before he resumed his pacing, only to be stopped again by an unexpected source.

“No. No, he  _ has _ gotten like this before,” Remus muttered quietly, burying his face in his hands. 

Virgil whipped around to face Remus, and everyone else turned their attention as well. 

“What do you mean, Remus?”

“Dee’s gotten like this before,” the side repeated, tugging at his own hair roughly.

“What?”

“He got like this once before you formed, a few times while you were around, and he was like this a lot after you left.”

“... He… He did…?”

Remus nodded, once again burying his face in his hands. 

Virgil felt his chest clench guiltily. He knew that his leaving wasn’t entirely unjustified, but he hadn’t even known, let alone wanted, Janus to get like  _ this _ because of it. And he certainly hadn’t wanted Remus to have to deal with Janus’s breakdowns on his own. And how hadn’t he known about the times it happened when he was  _ still there? _

“Remus,” Patton spoke up, his voice small. “Do you remember if there was anything that got Janus to come out when he got like this before?”

“ _... By breaking his door down,” _ Remus answered, his voice strained. 

“...Oh.”

“When he gets like this, he doesn’t come out unless you drag him out or he gets over it,” Remus explained. “But when I just let him stay in there…”

Remus trailed off, and Virgil’s bad feelings about the situation only grew.

“Remus, what happened when you didn’t intervene?” Logan asked. 

But Remus only curled up more and shook his head. Logan stood up and went over to Remus’s corner, where he knelt down.

“Remus, please. This is important.”

The creative side’s head shot up.

“Do you think I don’t  _ know _ that, asshole?!” Remus shouted before deflating again. “I… I promised Dee I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“I understand that, but I believe this situation has gone past the point where that matters,” Logan told him firmly. “I believe I have an idea of what may have occurred, but we need to know what happened, Remus. I don’t want to jump to the wrong conclusion and make things worse.”

Remus’s expression shifted to look conflicted, but he still didn’t answer. And then Logan spoke again, and his words made Virgil’s throat close up.

“Remus,” Logan said, even more firmly this time. “Is Janus a danger to himself?”

Virgil was immediately reminded of his suspicions from right before they found out about Janus’s skin picking, when he thought that Janus might have been cutting himself. Back then, Janus had said he wasn’t. But could he have done so in the past? Was it something other than cutting? Had Janus just been lying then, and he was too panicked to notice the signs that he wasn’t being told the truth? 

When tears started to build in Remus’s eyes, Virgil didn’t even have to hear his next words to know it was true:

“He… He might be,” he choked out. “One… One of the times this happened, it was right after Virgil left, so I thought he was just sad about that. And when I kept bothering him, he got mad and yelled at me to leave him alone, so I did. But he didn’t leave his room for a really long time, and when he actually let me in, there was a pill bottle, but it was empty, and I asked him about it, and at first he didn’t want to tell me and then he tried to tell me it wasn’t important and he just hadn’t gotten around to throwing it away yet but he looked weird and so I kept asking him about it, and eventually he got mad and started yelling and crying and saying that it didn’t matter anyway because it didn’t work and-”

Remus cut his fast-paced words off, but they all knew what he meant, what he had been describing. Remus was fully sobbing now, something Virgil hadn’t ever seen him do. 

And then Roman shot off the couch.

“Don’t you think you should have mentioned this  _ earlier?! _ ” he yelled at his brother, making Remus’s sobbing grow louder. “He could be  _ hurting himself! _ ”

“ _ WHY DO YOU THINK I WANTED TO BREAK DOWN THE  _ **_FUCKING_ ** _ DOOR, DIPSHIT?!”  _ Remus screamed back through his sobs.

“You don’t think your  _ reason _ for wanting to break down the door was important?!”

“L-Let’s not fight now, Kiddos-”

“I  _ PROMISED  _ NOT TO TELL!”

At this point, Virgil was one step away from a full-blown panic attack, the twins were fighting (and Remus was still sobbing), and Patton was trying and failing to keep himself from crying. Logan, despite being exhausted, worried, and stressed himself, took a deep breath in.

“ENOUGH!” he yelled sternly, loud enough to overpower the arguing. “Now is  _ not _ the right time to be fighting like this. We can’t actually die, but Janus is capable of causing himself serious harm. This is potentially a very serious situation, so we need to focus on the matter at hand.”

Everyone was silent now, looking toward Logan with various distressed expressions.

“Now, here’s what we’re going to do. Roman, you go inform Thomas of what’s happening and then return here. Remus and I will go back to Janus’s room, and if we still can’t get him to open the door, we’ll force it open. Virgil and Patton, stay here for now and try to calm down in case your assistance is needed. Does everyone understand?”

Logan waited a second for everyone to nod.

“Alright. Let’s get going then, Remus.”


	4. Part 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys-
> 
> So, I’m sure ya’ll know the drill by now, but PLEASE read the tags. This chapter deals with most of trigger warnings listed there (including the triggers related to suicide attempts), so make sure that you’ll be okay with reading this before you do.

Janus wasn’t sure how long he had been in his room at this point. He knew it had been a while, but the longer he stayed there, the more scared he was of leaving. He was sure that, by now, the others would be mad at him for dragging this on so long. They would be mad at him for pulling this. Or they would be worried about him, and when they saw that he was  _ fine _ and just being dramatic because he was afraid to leave his room,  _ then _ they would be mad. 

He looked down at the bottle in his hands. He knew this was stupid. He knew there wasn’t a point in doing what his thoughts were encouraging him to do. It wouldn’t work. He knew it wouldn’t. He’d already tried this a few years ago, and all it did was make him go unconscious for a while, and then he woke up feeling the worst he ever had in his life. It wouldn’t help anything.

But still, his mind taunted him, telling him that he should do it anyway. At least the unconsciousness would give him a break from his spiraling thoughts. Maybe he’d feel better afterward. Maybe it would help him settle his emotions. 

Maybe, this time, it would work. 

For what must have been at least the tenth time, he poured out the capsules onto his carpet in front of where he was sitting. One by one, he counted them all, putting them into neat little rows.  _ 31 _ . 31 pills, which he already knew. 31 pills because, the day before, he’d had 34, and he’d taken 3 of them before backing out. 31 pills. He knew that 16 of them would probably be enough to cause an overdose if he was real and not a side. He had almost twice that, but he knew that wouldn’t be enough to actually kill him. 

Janus took a deep breath in and stared at his little lines of tiny, white pills. He scooped a few into his hand and continued staring at them. 

_ They wouldn’t miss you. They’d be happier without you. They don’t need a deceptive, lying snake to keep hanging around them. They would be happier without you here. Thomas would be a better person if you were gone.  _

He took another breath in, shakier this time. Another breath, deep and slow. 

And then he brought his hand to the open top of the pill bottle and dropped them inside. It only took a minute for him to finish putting them all away. 

He shook his head at himself before reaching over to put the bottle down on his coffee table. 

When the next knock came at the door, it was both Logan and Remus, and Janus jumped at the sound of their voices.

“Dee! Are you okay?”

“Janus, we are deeply concerned for your safety.”

He winced at the way their voices sounded. He knew what Remus sounded like when he had been crying, and Logan’s superficially cool, even tone was underlaid with exhaustion and fear. Guilt ate at him. They sounded like that because of him, didn’t they?

But as he was considering whether he should respond or not, Logan continued talking.

“Janus, if you don’t open your door and come out, we are going to have to force it open,” Logan informed him. “We were trying to avoid that, but new information has increased our level of concern.”

New information? 

“... I’m sorry, DeeDee,” Remus apologized. “I know I promised I wouldn’t tell, but I’m… I’m scared you’ll do it again. Please… Please come out.”

His heart filled with ice as panic threatened to overtake his mind.

“We are entirely serious about our threat to break the door down. So, please, just let us in, Janus.”

He knew they were serious. How many times had Remus broken his door down over the years? But he was scared, and the panic that loomed over him wasn’t making it any easier to respond. His breath started speeding up.

They knocked again.

“Janus.”

He was frozen. He couldn’t get up, couldn’t open the door.

More knocking.

He knew he should at least  _ say _ something, maybe try to convince them that he was fine and that they should go, but he couldn’t  _ breathe- _

“We’re going to have to break it.”

And then he started hearing the slamming sound of Remus trying to break the door down, and he was  _ scared _ , and he didn’t know  _ what _ they would do, but it was going to be something bad, and he was shaking, and he  _ couldn’t breathe _ , he couldn’t  _ move _ and-

Remus’s morningstar broke through the wood of his door, making a hole big enough for Remus to stick his hand through and unlatch the lock. He wanted to run- even though he  _ knew _ Remus was his friend and wasn’t there to hurt him, he wanted to get up, run away and hide. But he was frozen where he was, curled up on the floor, head tucked between his knees and hands covering his ears.

And then there were footsteps and voices and hands touching him, and he just wanted to get away, just wanted everything to  _ stop _ -

“Janus, listen to my voice. Do you hear me?”

He jerked away, trying to get away from whatever was touching him. 

“Don’t!”

“Okay. I won’t touch you. But you have to breathe. Try to follow along with me, alright?”

He heard Logan breathing loudly a few times.

“Janus, you have to try, alright?”

“Dee…”

Janus gasped, choking. How was he supposed to breathe like Logan when he couldn’t even breathe at all?

“Let’s try again, alright? Breathe in.”

He tried. It didn’t work, but he tried.

“Okay, that was good. Let’s try again now.”

Logan guided him through his breathing, just as Virgil had after his appointment with Emile, until he had calmed down enough to be able to breathe on his own. And when he had, Janus only barely managed to keep himself from plummeting right back into panic. 

He felt a light touch on one of his hands, though he didn’t flinch away this time. 

“It’s alright, Janus. Can you understand me? You had a panic attack, but you’re going to be okay.”

Slowly, Janus nodded. 

“Okay. Just keep breathing, alright?”

And then Logan turned to Remus.

“We should bring him back to the common room. I don’t think it’s wise to leave him in a room we can’t sink into, even if the door is broken for now.”

Janus was too tired to point out to Logan that he wasn’t exactly great at repairing stuff (Remus was the one who always had to fix his door after breaking it), and even if he was, he was too exhausted to do anything right now. With the panic leaving his body, Janus found it being quickly replaced by a fatigue that he only felt in circumstances like this.

He felt himself being lifted up, despite his weak attempts at protesting. Then he was being carried out of his room.

Janus fell asleep before they reached their destination.


	5. Part 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, here’s your warning to read the tags.
> 
> And sorry for always rambling about my crap in the author’s notes, so feel free to skip the rest of this note. I’m just pretty upset today ‘cuz I’ve finally heard back about my biopsy from my doctor, and essentially they still can’t tell if the abnormal cells in my throat are cancerous or not. They’re gonna see if there’s any of my sample left, but if there isn’t, or if the sample comes back either bad or inconclusive (yet again), I’m gonna have to get half of my thyroid removed. I’ll probably be told to have the surgery no matter what the results are, though, because even if the cells aren’t dangerous now, they might be later. So, it’s very likely I’ll need to get the surgery, and I’m just kinda freaking out about it. And idk, it’s just getting less and less likely that I won’t have to get it.
> 
> But, onto the story:

Remus cradled Janus close to his chest, holding him like one would hold an unconscious damsel. If that damsel happened to be an imaginary, half-snake man who just passed out after having a panic attack, that is.

“Remus, I saw you pick something up from the table. What was it?” Logan asked seriously.

“... Pill bottle…,” he replied slowly. “How… how do we know if he took any?”

Logan’s face momentarily shifted to an expression of deep concern, no trace of the blankness he had been trying to maintain, but the logical side quickly schooled his features. He couldn’t let himself be distracted by his own emotions right now. 

“When we get back to the living room, we’ll try to wake him up. Hopefully, he just fell asleep after exhausting himself,” Logan answered.

“... But what if he did take them?”

“... Then we’ll try to treat him as best we can until he recovers.”

XXX

When Logan and Remus returned, the latter carrying an unconscious Janus, Virgil sprang forward from where he had been standing with the others.

“Is he okay?!” he demanded.

“We aren’t entirely sure,” Logan responded slowly as Remus laid Janus down on the couch. “We had to break his door, and he had a panic attack. And we… we found a pill bottle, but we don’t know if he’s taken any.”

“... Oh my  _ God… _ ”

It wasn’t until that quiet gasp that Logan and Remus realized that Roman had brought Thomas along with him when he returned to the mindscape. 

“What-What should we do?” Thomas questioned. 

“We should try waking him up. If we can do so, we can attempt to ask him if he’s taken anything,” Logan told them. “If… If we can’t, then we’ll have to figure it out from there.”

Thomas nodded seriously, and Virgil was already at the sleeping snake’s side, beginning to shake him awake. It was a bit rougher than was perhaps necessary, but thankfully, Janus bolted up, wide awake. 

“What’s- oh  _ fuck _ ,” Janus sputtered out as he awoke. 

“WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, JAN?!” Virgil shouted. “DON’T- You better not pull this again… fucking…”

At hearing this, they saw Janus’s face crumple, and Virgil immediately realized that he had likely sounded pretty harsh. Yelling at Janus in this situation probably wasn’t the best move, but he had done it without thinking. Trying to backtrack, Virgil kept talking.

“No, Jan, I’m not  _ mad _ at you,” he said. “I’m  _ extremely _ fucking worried. Did you take anything? Logan said you had a bottle of pills.”

Janus just stared at him, and started breathing heavily again. Patton came over and put a hand on Virgil’s shoulder.

“Virgil, maybe back up a bit and give Janus some space, okay?”

And Virgil wanted to argue, wanted to pull Janus close and make sure he was okay, but he knew from experience that overwhelming someone on the brink of another panic attack was a bad idea. So, instead, he took a few steps away from the couch, allowing Janus to sit up and curl into a ball on the couch cushions.

“I-I-I,” Janus stuttered out. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry!”

The others, aside from Remus (who had seen this before), were all shocked at what they were seeing. They hadn’t ever seen Janus like this. Even during other emotionally-charged moments, Janus hadn’t ever looked so  _ scared _ and  _ small _ .

“Janus, buddy, you don’t need to apologize,” Thomas told him. “We’re not mad at you. We’re really not. But we need to know if you took anything.”

Janus wasn’t looking at them. Instead, he was pressing his face into his bent knees, his arms pulling them close to his chest. 

“I-I… No. No, I…,” Janus stumbled. “I… I took a few y-yesterday, but I didn’t…”

Once again, Virgil felt his heart plummet. Janus  _ had _ taken something. 

Logan stepped forward. 

“Janus, how many did you take?”

The other man took in a few shaky breaths before answering.

“O-Only three… I-I stopped after that…”

“Is that the truth? It’s okay if it isn’t, but if that was a lie, you need to tell us. Did you really only take three of them?”

Janus nodded.

Virgil felt the need to ask Janus what color the sky was, but he wasn’t sure if Janus would be able to respond to that question, or how the other man would react to it. He didn’t want to make Janus feel like he was accusing him. Even still, as he looked at Janus curled up like that, he had just about convinced himself to ask anyway. But before he could, Logan must have seen something to convince him Janus was telling the truth because the logical side seemed to accept the answer. 

“Alright… Alright.”

Virgil took a deep breath in.

Okay, at least it wasn’t that many. Janus wasn’t in the middle of an overdose. 

He was telling the truth, right? Virgil hoped to everything that he was.

“I-I’m sorry…”

Suddenly, Remus was by Janus’s side, pulling him into a tight hug. Janus flinched at first, but then he relaxed into the familiar touch. 

“It’s okay, Janny… It’s gonna be okay… We aren’t mad, and we don’t hate you,” Remus whispered to him. “We’ve just all been really worried… We love you, Jan, okay? It’s gonna be alright…”

Janus let out a sob.

“I’m sorry!”

“I know… I know…”

“I-I didn’t! I was- I-I…”

He cut himself off with another sob and a harsh, hiccuping breath. Remus began rubbing slow circles on the other man’s back. 

“It’s okay… You don’t have to explain anything right now. We can talk later,” Remus comforted. “Just rest for now, okay? We’ll be here when you wake up.”

And Remus continued to comfort him until he finally drifted back to sleep once again.


	6. Part 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, in this chapter, we’re going to see most of the others’ thoughts about what’s going on. I tried to capture the different side’s reactions, so hopefully I did it right. Once again, this chapter deals with potentially triggering content.
> 
> (Feel free to skip this part of the note if you don’t want to read it):
> 
> Thanks to everyone who took the time to write a comforting comment about my health. It means a lot that people who don’t even know me went out of their way to try to make me feel better. The day after I posted the last chapter, I got a call from my doctor, and they said that there’s a 50% chance of the abnormal cells being cancerous, so I talked to the surgeon today (really fast turnover for this). Since they can’t determine whether it’s cancerous or benign, I’m going to have half of my thyroid removed in the beginning of April, and that should hopefully be the end of it regardless of what it is. So, all this is pretty scary (and isn’t helped by my needle phobia), but I should be okay. The nodule might not even be malignant, but since it can’t really be ruled out, it’s safer for me to have it removed, and then I should be okay.
> 
> And now, the story:

Virgil felt completely out of his depth with this. He knew how to handle anxiety, knew how to help Janus if he was feeling anxious, but this was way beyond anything he knew how to help with. Hell, he barely even knew how to help with the skin picking thing, so this was just… He didn’t know what to do. 

Janus had already tried to kill himself before, and now, he had apparently tried again, though he had managed to stop himself before he could complete the attempt. What would have happened if Janus hadn’t stopped himself? If he had taken more pills? If they had waited a little longer and Janus worked up the nerve to try again? They couldn’t just  _ die _ because they were parts of Thomas, but an overdose would have put Janus in a lot of pain. It might have even pulled him into a  _ coma _ , and who knew how long it would have taken him to wake up from  _ that _ \- if he ever would have.

He didn’t even know  _ what _ was wrong. Sure, he knew that Janus had been getting more anxious- despite the fact that he had seemed to be improving his relationships with everyone- but Virgil really hadn’t expected his observation to spark whatever it was that happened. He expected Janus to be concerned, maybe upset, but how could he have known it would have set off a full-blown  _ mental breakdown? _

And apparently, this wasn’t even the first time Janus had gotten like this. He’d been like this even when Virgil had still been living with the Dark Sides, and he  _ hadn’t noticed _ . He’d  _ known _ that Janus would sometimes stay in his room for extended periods of time- how had he not known that wasn’t  _ normal? _ Why hadn’t he taken it seriously? Had he been too consumed in his own issues to notice that Janus had been doing  _ that badly? _

Or… had Janus not trusted him enough to tell him? Had it only started getting so bad after they began arguing all the time? Had that  _ caused _ some of it? Based on what Remus told them, it seemed like that argument between them had sparked Janus’s last attempt. Or, maybe, were the arguments a symptom of whatever the issue was? 

He didn’t know. 

But he did know that, right now, Janus was sleeping, and he would wake up soon. And when he did, they would have to help him, whatever form that took.

_ They  _ **_had_ ** _ to help him. _

XXX

Logan was tired, but more importantly, he was  _ terrified _ . He hated admitting it, even to himself, but he was. Through everything that had been happening lately, Logan now cared for Janus just as much as he cared about the others. He wanted to help him, and he was  _ terrified _ of the thought that Janus would hurt himself, that he  _ already had _ . 

He had known that there was  _ something _ wrong besides the skin picking, but he had written it off as anxiety. Of course, he knew that part of it likely had to do with the past. Logan hadn’t been there when Creativity, the  _ old _ Creativity had forced Janus to leave, and he hadn’t witnessed the argument that apparently transpired between Janus and Virgil that made Virgil leave, but he had at least gotten a summary of the former event after he asked where Deceit had gone. Even back then, he had known that driving the other side away had been an over-reaction, but Creativity was stubborn in his decision, and Morality had been upset, so he had let the matter go. He thought that letting it go would have only been temporary, and he thought that Deceit would eventually come back, but he hadn’t. Not for a very long time, and by then, they were on opposite sides, and it seemed like it was too late to change it. 

Regardless of what exactly happened, though, Logan knew that both events likely contributed to what had transpired these last few weeks. He didn’t entirely understand whatever thought processes must have gone through Janus’s mind, but he had already theorized that Janus had a difficult time trusting them. Even when he seemed to be fine around them, he still hid when things were wrong until he wasn’t able to hide anymore. This had probably been building up for a while, and Janus hadn’t been comfortable in seeking their help.

He couldn’t be entirely sure what the issue was, especially not without talking to Janus about it first. Most likely, it wasn’t just one thing. Being locked away with his thoughts for a prolonged period of time had likely only worsened matters, but his best guess as to what had happened was a combination of anxiety and a severe depressive episode. It was hard to tell, though.

But the name for what happened wasn’t exactly the most important thing. Naming it could help in treating it, but the first step was to make sure Janus was safe.

_ He just needed Janus to be safe. _

XXX

Patton felt awful. If only he hadn’t just blurted out the first thing that popped into his head, this might not have even happened. 

He hadn’t meant to make Janus upset, but he knew he had. Janus didn’t look  _ happy _ before he came into the room, but he hadn’t looked like he wanted to cry until Patton told him that his decreased lying was a good thing. 

He should have  _ known _ that was the wrong thing to say. After everything that had happened between them, he should have known that suggesting that Deceit performing less of his function- his function he had to  _ fight _ to show them the importance of- was a  _ good _ thing.

But that hadn’t been what he meant! He knew now that lying could be good sometimes, and he hadn’t been upset about Janus’s compulsive lies (not for a while now, at least). He just thought that Janus had been opening up to them more. And besides, wasn’t speaking backwards all the time hard? It always led to so much confusion, and it seemed to inconvenience Janus just as much as everyone else. And when he  _ really _ couldn’t control the lies, wasn’t that unpleasant? He doubted that Janus  _ liked _ having his words twisted out of his control. Wouldn’t it be easier on him if he didn’t  _ have _ to lie?

He wished he just hadn’t said anything, or that, at the very least, he had explained what he meant faster. He should have stopped Janus from leaving, stopped him from locking himself in his room. But he hadn’t.

While Janus slept, Patton laid a soft blanket on top of him. 

It wouldn’t do much to help in this situation, but for now, it was all he  _ could _ do.

_ He just hoped Janus would be okay. _

XXX

Roman was shocked, to say the least. He hadn’t expected his  _ brother _ of all people to comfort Janus like that. Sure, he knew that the two of them were friends (after all, Janus and his brother had been hanging around the commons more and more lately), but Roman had never seen his brother be  _ gentle _ and  _ comforting _ like that. Well, he hadn’t seen him break down crying, either, though.

At least the comforting had worked- as well as it could have, anyway. Roman hadn’t known what to think when he saw his brother and Logan return, holding an unconscious Janus. Considering what Remus had told them right before, his first thought was that Janus might have been dead. But he quickly dismissed the idea since he knew it wasn’t actually possible, and if Janus was in any  _ immediate _ danger, then Remus and Logan would have looked  _ way _ more panicked than they did, right?

He didn’t like seeing Janus like this. He would have even preferred the Janus from before over what the snake was now. He would rather Janus be awake and  _ okay _ , even if he was manipulating and insulting them.

But Janus hadn’t apparently been really  _ okay _ then either, had he? Maybe he was okay for parts of it, but according to Remus, there had been a lot of times when he  _ wasn’t _ . 

And as he watched Janus bury his face and cry (in a position that looked so much like Remus earlier), he was reminded of the way Janus had curled up on the ground that day. He was reminded of the actions his splitting mind had taken to prove he was still the hero. 

He shouldn’t have let that happen. It had been his half of the old Creativity’s mind that wanted to drive Janus away, and after the split, his resolve to keep him away only strengthened. No amount of compliments, no matter how nice they made him feel (though a part of him, deep down, knew that most of them had just been lies) would have changed that. 

Lately, he’d been  _ trying _ to make an effort to make up for the past, with both Janus and Virgil, even if not his brother so much. He had  _ tried _ , he’d been  _ trying _ .

But he feared it might have been too little too late to make a difference. 

_ And, well, here was his proof of that. _

XXX

Thomas really had no idea just how badly Janus had been doing. It wasn’t like they never saw each other or spent time together, but despite spending more time with Janus than before, he was struck with the realization that he still barely even  _ knew _ him (which was strange because Janus was a part of him, but that's besides the point). 

He wondered what exactly had happened. Roman had filled him in on the discussion that spurred Janus into hiding soon after it happened, and he had also updated him on this latest development while Logan and Remus went to break down Janus’s door. 

And that…

That was concerning, to say the least. 

The fact that they even  _ had _ to resort to breaking the side’s door down was so ridiculously concerning that he didn’t even know what to think about it.

Thomas had been under the impression that Janus was just being stubborn. He thought that the deceitful side was angry and decided to pout in his room for a while. And the others told him that Janus would still have access to things like food and water in his room, and in the past, they also told him that Janus had a habit of staying in his room for a while. He hadn’t  _ known _ that Janus had literally refused to even open the door even when Patton broke down in tears, or when Virgil begged him to at least let them know if he was okay. He hadn’t understood the way Virgil could sense Janus’s intense anxiety, even when he was nowhere near the door to the side’s room. He hadn’t known that Janus was having a mental breakdown this entire time, or that something like that was even in the playing cards.

He hadn’t realized just how  _ serious _ the situation had been, even before the point when they found out Janus was prone to hurting himself. 

He had just assumed that Janus would come out eventually. 

But maybe he should have at least considered the possibility that the situation could be more serious than he thought it was.

After all, he had already known that the deceitful side had one mental illness. Why should it be so shocking that there could be another problem? It wasn’t like he was unaware of the fact that his sides experienced problems separate from his own. And he knew that all of his sides had some kind of problem, whether it was Virgil’s anxiety or Roman’s self-esteem issues. 

He probably would have tried to do something earlier if he had known any better.

But he just… he  _ hadn’t _ known.

_ He hadn’t  _ **_known_ ** _. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, we’ll see Remus’s thoughts about this in the next chapter. His part is longer, so I decided to separate it into its own chapter. Don’t worry, though, because I’ll probably post it in a few days.


	7. Part 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here’s Remus’s thoughts. Once again, lots of potential triggers here.

Remus felt like his heart was being torn apart by some kind of monster with sharp teeth and pointy claws. He wasn’t really sure what  _ kind _ of monster with sharp teeth and pointy claws since he wasn’t exactly feeling very creative at the moment- but that wasn’t important right now. 

His best friend had  _ not _ been doing well, and it was breaking his heart. 

He’d thought that Janus had been doing better since the others started to  _ really _ accept him. He  _ had  _ been doing better for a while, better than he had been in  _ years _ , and Remus had hoped that maybe, just  _ maybe _ , Dee would be  _ happy _ and  _ stay _ happy (and Remus  _ knew _ that wasn’t how these kinds of things worked, but he had been hopeful nonetheless). 

But of course, that isn’t what happened.

He could still remember the first time, the first time Dee got really sad and didn’t want to come out of his room. It had been a little while after Roman had kicked him out, and Remus had gotten bored. He wanted to play something with Dee, but he realized he hadn’t seen him in a while. 

When he went to the other side’s room, he’d found the door locked, but he hadn’t really cared. He broke the door down without so much of a thought and waltzed on inside. 

And he’d found Dee crying while he curled around a pillow. 

And Remus hadn’t understood then that something was seriously wrong. He’d just thought that Dee needed some cheering up, so he dragged him outside and made him play and showed him things he made until Dee looked like he was feeling better. 

He’d started to find Dee like that more and more as time went on, though there were probably times it happened and he didn’t notice (Remus had a tendency to get distracted, after all, so sometimes he didn’t even realize how much time had passed between things). 

Dee seemed happy after they found Virgil, but that was only sometimes. Other times, Dee was even sadder than before, though that probably had less to do with Virgil and more to do with them becoming teenagers. 

But regardless of the reason, Remus kept finding Janus hiding away in his room more and more, and most of the times he broke the door down, he found that Janus either was or had been crying. And usually, his response to this was to pull Janus out of his room and make him do something to get him out of his head, even if it was something silly and stupid and pointless. 

He usually wouldn’t mention it, either to Dee or to Virgil. He didn’t tell Virgil because he knew that Dee didn’t want the other side to know, and he didn’t talk about it with Janus because he thought Janus didn’t want to talk about it. He thought that Janus’s pride would prefer that Remus pretend that nothing was out of the ordinary, that nothing was wrong.

Maybe he should have at least  _ tried _ to talk about it. Maybe his attempts to make Dee feel like he wasn’t being pressured made him think he didn’t care. But it was too late to change that  _ now _ . 

After Virgil left, though, things became even worse. Janus spent more time feeling bad than he did feeling okay, and Remus found himself breaking down Dee’s door so often that, sometimes, he hadn’t even gotten around to fixing it before he next felt the need to check on the snake. 

That day he’d found Janus after he took all those pills would probably stay burned in his mind for the rest of his life. Virgil had only been gone for a month or two at that point, and at first, Remus just thought that Dee needed some time to himself. But Dee just continued to stay in his room, even after an entire month passed. Had Remus realized so much time had passed, he would have already broken down the door before then, but he hadn’t. Then, when he started trying to force the door open, Janus started yelling at him, screaming for him to go away (and he tried not to think about all the hurtful things Dee yelled at him because he knew he hadn’t  _ really _ meant it), and even though part of him knew he shouldn’t have, he decided to leave Janus alone a little longer. 

But a month and a half was long enough, so that was when Remus barged in again. 

When he did, he found Dee laying in his bed, his eyes red. He hadn’t noticed at first, but Dee had been having trouble sitting up and staying upright. And so, this time, when Remus tried to pull him out of the room, Deceit ended up falling onto the floor, his unwilling legs refusing to hold him up properly.

And when Remus tried to hoist him upright, he found a bottle that had been knocked to the floor along with the man- a pill bottle, one that was empty. 

And Remus asked him what it was for. He jokingly said that Janus shouldn’t do drugs without him (even though the back of his mind was screaming about what he knew the pill bottle had  _ really _ been for), but Janus only snapped that it wasn’t important and that it was none of his business. And then Remus continued to press him for what the empty pill bottle was doing there, and Deceit told him that he just hadn’t gotten around to throwing the bottle away once he finished it. He said that he had a headache and hadn’t felt like getting up just to throw the bottle into the trash can. Except Remus read the label on the bottle, and he knew that these pills weren’t the kind that Dee took when he had a headache, and Dee looked so  _ sick _ , so he kept pressing.

And then Janus broke down into screaming sobs, telling him to leave, telling him that he should just go follow Virgil. He told him that he knew Remus would leave him eventually, so he should just  _ do _ it already. And when Remus stayed, he told him that he  _ wanted _ him to go, said he hated him and never wanted to see him again. Deceit tried to spew hateful lies at him again, hoping it would make Remus leave him alone, but even still, he stayed this time. 

And Remus asked again, and finally, Janus yelled that it didn’t matter because it didn’t work anyway, and that was enough confirmation for him to accept what had happened. 

He hadn’t realized that Janus had just taken the pills a few hours earlier (or that he had only briefly awakened from unconsciousness) until the other side suddenly passed out in his arms while sobbing- until Dee started throwing up and convulsing and  _ he wouldn’t wake up _ . Before then, he had assumed that Janus had taken the pills a while ago, and he had already recovered (he had to shake himself to stop the morbid thoughts of his friend’s corpse laying on his bed, motionless, motionless,  _ dead _ ). 

And he hadn’t really known what to do or how to help, and he didn’t have anyone else to ask for help, either. The others weren’t going to help (or at least, that was the way it seemed back then, and maybe then, it had been true), and he knew that Janus would hate for them to see him like this (and he was pretty sure that was the case even now). 

All he had really been able to do was keep an eye on him and try to make sure he ate and drank a little until he woke up, and Remus still isn’t sure how much time passed before he did. And when Dee  _ did _ wake up, he was still confused and sick, but once he was well enough to do so, he asked Remus to leave him alone. 

After that, Remus  _ had _ tried to talk about it, but Janus never would. He seemed to prefer pretending that he had just had a really bad case of the flu. Remus wasn’t sure how much of what happened Dee  _ did _ really remember (he  _ had _ been really out of it, even before and after he passed out) and how much of his ‘amnesia’ was pretend.

Remus hadn’t been able to do anything else to help. 

Janus wouldn’t  _ let _ him help.

_ All he could do was watch. _


End file.
